Another long term storage, this time a T-1 Coupe

[Jbrooks]

Its alive, she moves under her own power, for the first time since 2008. She fires right up on first crank, idles without any pedal . I drove it 30 miles from the shop, home to do some final adjustments and fitting the bling. For the first run it handles well, plenty of power. The steering is a little stiff, generator light is intermittent. I think the Voltage Regulator has dirty points (I hope). Overall a good test run mostly at 3000RPM, no strange noises or real issues. Did rev it up to 4K on a down shift, shortly after playing with the heater knob,. Found a pound of sand in the defroster vents. That was interesting having a dust storm at 60 mph on a country road. Probably put a leaf blower on the heater for a few minutes and put a sewer cleaning nozzle on a air line an clean out the ducts. its was allot of dust an rust.

Shift linkage is very strange, Boob remove the entire monkey motion system changes the transmission nose to a 741 with a early B piece pipe and a chopped up shifter. I found all the gears but the throws a crazy long, 3rd is in a different county, 4th is on the passengers seat. I have a plan to raise the pivot point on the piece pipe, maybe shorten them up some. we will see. Or I can get Celeste a right arm extension.

things still on the to do list: pull the motor, try to get the valve covers off and a new front main crank seal. Exterior trim, door handles, jewellery, wipers, horn relay, head light relay, fog light relay, steering wheel wires. Seats wont adjust, But its a mover now. I almost took it to the 356 Bullsession today in Seattle, but not enough miles on it yet to trust driving a couple hundred miles to a picnic, with 2 ferry lines in the route.

but overall this is going to be a nice car, the metal work is fine, it has truck bed liner everywhere to seal it up, paint looks OK, jts now mostly nit picking stuff.

[Jbrooks]

Seat adjustment, drivers seat rail is bent like a rainbow( item 10). Someone has welded it to the pan, and the rear warped it. The pan is in poor condition with lots of flex and cracks. I got some of the bend out. I can get the seat back 5-6” now. It will work for now but I am looking for a T-1, T-2 or T-5 seat pan or a seat bottom. I found a drivers rail but holding out for a pan. Push come to shove I can drill out the rivets and replace the bent seat rail. I could replace the rivets with rivnuts with a doubler inside. I really do not want to take a new recovered seat apart.

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I am looking for a new or better pan, or a complete bottom, or at least a new upper drivers rail for a. T-1, T-2, or early T-5. If you have one in you stash let me know. I could replace the rail but the pan needs allot of work. But at least I can get it it and my belt buckle does not rub the wheel.

[JTR70]

I might have a Rail for you John, I'll take a look. Amazing how people build or assemble things thinking that its going to work properly in the end.

[JTR70]

Hey John, I have this good core drivers side upper if you're still in need. It has the plain mounting holes which are correct for the steel pan version which it was riveted to. Switching over the adjustment handle is very easy and straight forward as you probably already know.... Justin

[Jbrooks]

Justin
thanks I have a replacement rail. I have the seal slider 3/4 back now, good for now, we will do the pan next winter, I need to get this little girl home.

Bigger fish in the pan, started having a flywheel seal leak. So I pulled the engine to fix it. Had to pull the muffler since it a T-1. The we find out the Nerff bars were designed in such a way the Mufler will not come out with them installed. Two steps forward one back. Note the double reflectors, Boob mounted the originals to the bumper for some reason and left the original holes open.

Then we got engine out, I go to look at the crankshaft end play, I grab the flywheel it’s got 6-8mm movement, my heart sinks, then when I go to remove the gland nut, it’s hand tight. Yes put the socket on the nut and remove it by hand. Then pull off the flywheel and it’s missing two of the dowel pins. My god, Boob did some stupid stuff during his “full restoration” but this is ridiculous. I guess since he did not know about the two close pins he could not get the flywheel to align, so he removed a couple pins, then did not torque the gland nut. There is a witness mark on a couple holes where the pins were not aligned then the nut was tightened. One pin was stuck in the flywheel, but it aligned fine into the crank. But the holes in the crank and flywheel look OK not oval from too much sloppy fit up. So a new iron crush seal, couple dowels from the stash and fresh crank seal it back together.

The rest of the car is finally coming along, only a few more circuits to repair, Horn and light relays up under the glove box. The minion has an engine drop under his belt now. It sure is easy with him doing the close to the ground work instead of me. He has just pushed the engine over and getting ready to install the dial indicator for the end play measurement, then I found the loose flywheel. You can see the extended engine jack in use. It’s was easy drop, he has no idea what it was like with a 2x4 on a floor jack. Trying to balance the engine with one hand and tip it to clear the heater horns, while trying to twist the handle to lower the jack “SLOWLY” . This jack modification is amazing.

Clutch disc was a little oily, but right at 8.2mm thick with no runout, so it is in tolerance, so into the ultrasonic cleaner to remove the oil and we’re back together. Going back as soon as I figure out how to remove the valve covers since it looks like Boob used JB Weld instead of gaskets.

[Jbrooks]

A good day, more new problems. Finally got out the gas ax and removed the valve covers. Not too hard with the engine out. Boob had epoxied them on, but it does not stick to red hot tin. They cleaned up OK with a scotch bright disc, the head flange surface was a little harder but it finally cleaned up. Now they are nice and bright. There are some light rust on the rockers and springs, it’s cleaned up.

Valve cap touching the rocker

While adjusting the valves, found #4 exhaust was very tight, and the adjuster was all the way in. Looks like the valve seat is receding or it had a previous hatchet valve job. We started to pull the head. The valve spring was touching the rocker stand. The rocker are had a witness from the stem cap.. I went to the book to look for tolerances, spring hight was ok. After an hour of discussion with my minion, I decided to do a “10,000 mile” fix, vise what would turn into another few weeks overhaul on this motor. I used a couple kin pin shims and moved the rocker stand out .060. The shim will shift the geometry on the rocker stand, give me some clearance between the valve cap and the stand. It seems to work. But only .008-.010 clearance’, but it does not touch anymore, and I picked up 3/4 of valve adjuster screw, adjusted fine after the shim. We will check next tune up, it it’s a receding valve seat, the next adjustment will show us if was not a bad previous valve job. Since the compression and leak down test were good, the valve is sealing. The fix should good for a while.

So the valves are adjusted, tune up complete, motor is back in, heater cables adjusted, looks good. Finally looked at the engine numbers, turns out it’s a 616/15 case with matching half’s. New 3 piece, different 3 digit and no serial number, with early A heads, and Zenith32’s . A “FRKENMOTOR”.

”Test drive Tomorrow , after all the surprises it’s turning out to be a nice car.

[JTR70]

I can completely understand as to why a project just after restoration goes up for sale. All of the bugs you are dealing with it would make an owner quickly throw up his hands and give up. They are lucky to have found you. The car is looking good though.

[roy mawbey]

John, well that was interesting to read!! How could Boob do that to you? You know any other guy who has no idea about things like Boob and bought this car would be just sit down and cry! Well done John on doing what you did. Yes, I bet when you checked the flywheel end play you must have thought what am I going to do now. To leave the not loose was really awful of him what sort of man is he in normal life? To sort all that and be ready to drive it today ( or yesterday for me ) is amazing. I do hope it ran well. The car does look nice in the photos at least Boob only had it for I think a short time?

Roy

[Jbrooks]

Roy thanks for the kind words. Justin. Yes I can not believe all that was wrong after a sand blasted restoration that took x 17 years, over $90k. This woman was taken to the cleaners 3-4 times. It looks good overall, but if you know 356s or bought it to a Porsche shop to get on the road, they would open more seats in law school for the law suits. This was criminal in my opinion. I thought a car coming out of a restoration would only need a service and a tuneup, little did I know it also required assembly and wiring. Almost wish I had just got a new harness now. If I knew boob was colorblind and did not know 356’s I would probably walked away. I thought this was a couple weeks, not all summer!

Engines back in the seals are holding, the leaks have subsided and we survived the tsunami. Down on the beach was almost three inches high! Could not believe the ruckus here on the island when the issued the watch 12 hours before arrival. Three more relays to build, horn, headlight flashers and fog lights. I can see light at the end of the tunnel.